"So do I get to braid your hair now?" I asked, attempting to lighten the mood. Liam grinned.

"I'm a man of my word. Here," he said, tilting his head toward me. I ran my fingers through it, searching for the longer pieces. His hair was surprisingly soft for an undead person. I couldn't help running my fingers back through it an extra time.

"What's your mom like?" Liam asked as I started braiding.

"My mom?" I thought for a moment. "She's...something. Really cool a lot of the time but...she's got a bit of a drinking problem. Always going out, never really making great decisions-hence my fatherlessness. I feel like I have to clean up for her a lot of the time, but I don't mind too much I guess. I'm...really worried about how she's doing without me," I said, again spilling more than I intended. Hell, I probably should have just stayed silent. I cursed my stupidity.

"It sounds to me like you're more of a parent than she is, if you don't mind me saying." Liam quipped. Quietly, I finished up a short little braid. It stuck almost straight out from the side of his head.

"Yeah. Maybe. It's okay, though. I really don't have much else to do. Besides, she still raised me okay," I said, not wanting to talk about that much longer. "How about you? What's your mom like?"

"Nonexistent," Liam said simply, sitting up and playing with his new braid.

"You've never met yours either?" I asked, kind of surprised. Something about Liam didn't seem like the type, honestly. But Liam shook his head.

"No, I literally don't have one. Vampire births are...odd. You only need one and the kid doesn't really, uh, come out of anywhere. You're just sort of not there and then you are," Liam said.

"Sounds complicated," I said, adding that to the growing list of real vampire lore. I shuddered. The phrase 'real vampire' still didn't sit right.

"I guess. Most vampires aren't born, though. They're made from existing humans, usually pretty young ones," Liam said.

I glanced down at the band-aid on my wrist. "So like...by biting?" I asked, voice shaking slightly.

Liam glanced at me, then followed my gaze down to my wrist. "No, no! It's way more complicated than just one bite, so don't worry about that."

I sighed with relief. Turning into a vampire wouldn't be one of my problems.

"Oh. That's good," I said. "Wait, why are you telling me this? All of this?"

"Don't ask me. I shouldn't be. I never talk to humans like this. But you? You're..." Liam hesitated, searching for a word.

"I'm special?" I supplied.

"It sounds idiotic when I say it out loud, but yes. You are," Liam said. I beamed a little. No one had ever called me special before. They'd never had a reason to.

Actually, Liam didn't have a reason to either. I could chalk the friendliness up to one of his personality changes-it had happened before. But telling me so much about him, about vampires? It was just too suspicious.

"You're acting really suspicious, you know that?" I told him.

"What?" Liam said, sounding genuinely confused. Not that that meant much. He was probably a very good liar. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You come in here, suddenly being not just nice, but even...friendly. Being so normal after being so mean not even an hour ago? That's just...weird! And on top of that, you're telling me all this stuff that I have no business knowing and your only reason is that I'm special? You don't even know my last name!" I ranted, realizing too late that maybe insulting the vampire's kindness to his face wasn't the greatest idea.

Liam didn't look mad, though. He looked thoughtful, really, and a bit blank as well. I didn't know what to expect next at all.

"You're right. I shouldn't be speaking with you, not like this. I have no real way of knowing if there is anything special at all about you. And yet," he brought his face mere inches away from my own, so close I felt the chill radiating off him. "Here we are. I've no clue what I'm doing, but I'm not deceiving you, Blythe."

"How do I know I can trust anything you say?" I breathed, sitting as still as a statue. Having his face so close meant having those fangs close enough to rip my face off.

"You don't," he said simply. "But it would be very easy for me to do some very bad things to you right now, and I haven't done any of them. I think that makes me pretty trustworthy-especially for a vampire-but maybe that's just me."

I could see his teeth in the corner of my vision as I spoke. My right wrist tingled slightly, reminding me exactly how awful they were, even for that short amount of time.

"That's...true, I suppose," I said, voice quivering. Liam squinted at me.

"That's it? No protests?" He asked. I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't handle the sight of bright, gleaming fangs of death dancing inches from my face any longer.

"Sure," I said, too distracted by the war of emotions in my head to actually take in his words.

Finally, finally, Liam pulled away. "Are you sure your arm's okay?"

I breathed a sigh of relief, the fear churning in my belly lessening considerably. "Yes. It's fine."

"Then what is wrong?" Liam probed.

"Nothing!" I lied. Liam scoffed.

"I'm not stupid, Blythe. Just tell me."

I sighed. "It's just...your teeth. They were close to my face and I got kinda nervous. That's all. It was stupid," I muttered.

"No, it wasn't. The literal point of my teeth is to hurt humans. You're human, aren't you? It's only natural to get nervous," Liam pointed out rather gently.

"I don't know how I'm gonna get used to this," I said to myself.

"Get used to what?" Liam asked. I winced, having forgotten that he could hear so well.

"This!" I cried, waving an arm out at him. "You! Being...nice! Decent! Comforting, even!"

He looked down at himself. "I don't understand why you're so weirded out by it."

"Come on, seriously? You've been awful to me ever since the moment I saw you. You kidnapped me, slapped me, yelled at me, didn't let me say goodbye to my mother, made me witness a murder," I ticked the events off on my fingers. "A-and now you're suddenly this nice, genuine guy? Bullshit!"

"I'm thousands of years old. I'm allowed to be complicated," Liam grunted.

"Bullshit!" I yelled again, on impulse. Too late, I realized I should have just kept quiet. Liam's head turned sharply toward me.

"What?"

"I-I mean-" I tried to come up with an excuse, but Liam wasn't having it.

"Who told you?"

"Wh-what? I don't know anything-"

"Who TOLD YOU?" Liam roared, that terrible, soulless anger back in full force.

"No one!" I said rather meekly. Even Ruby didn't deserve to be in the line of this sort of fire.

"Was it Helena? Because I'll torture her-"

"NO!" I yelled. "I-it was Ruby! Ruby told me!"

Liam stood, fury coming off him in waves as he stormed toward the door.

"Wait! What are you going to do to her?" I asked, dreading the answer.

He turned to me, eyes so dark they looked pitch black. "You got your wish," he said, glaring down at me, murder written all over his face. "I think I'm done being f*cking nice for a while"

The slam of the door closing behind him shook the entire room.